Author jeff quinn. You open your most recent book, waco, with this quote from rick perlstein, the historian. A fog of crosscut motives and narratives, the complexity that defies storybook simplicity at a that is usually the way history happens. I think the quote is the most cogent of ever heard. Rick does a tremendous job himself and its true. Know historic event happens in a vacuum. Its tied to many other things. And thats the fascination in research and writing on narrative, nonfiction, history. What i read a quote from you as well, and this is from 2021 in the cleburne times review. A lot of people no longer want to buy nonfiction to learn things. They want nonfiction books to reflect what they already believ want books to reinforce their opinions. They want books that tell them everything they believe is absolutely right and that the other side is even worse than they thought. If you take a look at the bestseller list for nonfiction, for the last several years, theres three categories. Generally represented. The first books by political commentators who are associated in the public mind with one side or the other, talking about how the nation isnt. Nation is in danger from the opposition. America is going to hell. Heres what weve got to do to save the country. Starting with you, watching my network and buying my books. The second category is religious in nature. How i came to understand gods plan for my life. What god wants us to learn from reading the bible. And the third category is what i call the magic button. Ten ways you can make your fortune. Nine ways to ensuring a happy marriage. There are fewer and fewer titles represented on the bestseller list that are simply in depth fact filled objective looks at certain aspects of American History. But there are still people who want to read those, and its still important to get the history down. Thats what i tried to do. Well, tell us then, jeff cohen, what do bonnie and clyde wyatt earp, jim jones, david koresh, Charles Manson have in common . People that youve written about. Is there a similar is there a thread through that . Oddly enough, there is. My goal has always been to write books that capture the sweep of American History from the final settling of the west to the present day. And each of these subjects are iconic. We remember them. People tend to remember them in different ways. And a lot of the time they want myth rather than fact. Ive always thought that the facts are far more interesting than anything could be made up. When i pick a subject, lets use manson as an example. What i wanted to do was write about the late 1960s in america, which in terms of a chaotic time, makes today look peaceful when were all living in unison. To write about that era, you need someone or something from that era that will make readers want to pick up the book and open it. For better or worse, Charlie Manson represented a lot about the late 1960s. The culture at the time, the things people wanted to talk about, the things people got obsessed with. So i wrote a book about manson, but its really about the late 1960s. Everyone in you named is represented a certain era in america. What people were doing, thinking, believing at thewhat , thinking, and believing at the time. Regardless of your topics, and tell me if i am wrong. I find in your writing you treat your subjects and topics with respect. Maybe respect is not the right word. But, that is what struck me. Jeff thank you for saying that. I think the worst thing you can do if you want to write a book about some aspect of history is to go into it thinking you already know everything you need to know about it. It and you have already formed opinions about everything you will write about that are unshakable. People that take that approach are really only telling readers what happened. Some dates, some names. I think it is important to try to learn how things happened and why they happened. And, what things, earlier might have precipitated the events that bring about bonnie and clydes short two year spate of crime. If you do that, you may not agree with the people that are the subjects of the book. But, you can at least demonstrate understanding of what made them become what they were. If you can do that, i think readers not only get a better sense of them, but a better sense of the time they lived in. If you can do that, i think a book has succeeded. When it comes to bonnie and clyde, i almost felt sorry for bonnie. Most of those two years she was in pain from being shot and riding around in a ford through undeveloped america. Jeff that is what i mean about mythology. There was a wonderful movie in 1960 7, 1968 about bonnie and clyde. It was fascinating. You went to the movie and watched it and you were gripped by it. At least 5 was historically accurate. It was a fine movie, but it was entertainment. I wanted to know what they were really like. Bonnie parker is a poor girl coming from a dreadful dallas slum. Her dream was to be famous. To be a worldfamous actress. People did not come looking for pulitzer actresses where bonnie lived. She was tiny. She was the brightest people throughout her school years. Girls in those days, it did not matter how smart they were. She wanted fame. She wanted attention. For a poor kid, when she got together with clyde barrow, and the newspapers needed something to write about besides the depression and farm foreclosures, here is the romeo and juliet of crime pulling off during robberies and highspeed escapes. They were bumbling criminals. They did not rob banks much because they were not sophisticated enough to do that. If we look at it from the aspects of poor kids that when they had no other option in life, when they are ambitious, have to turn to something illegal, this does not forgive the they committed. People died. It is horrible. But, at least it lets us understand why, to them, it was the obvious and only way out of the poverty stricken lives they were going to be living otherwise. In the same light, in the same light, how did a movie and mythology develop around the ok corral . Was it that big a video . Jeff it was a big deal in a different way than it is remembered. Lets state the obvious. It was not a shootout. It was a police stop to take a couple weapons that went bad. It did not happen in the ok corral. But, when western history became a thing in america around the turn of the 20th century, the 1900s, that masterson that we remember saying seeing on tv with a bowler hat and a cane who was a gambler and buffalo hunter turned journalist made his living writing these wonderful tales of authentic western heroes that still walk among us. When he picked was wyatt earp. Who had a checkered past at best. That fabulous shootout at the ok corral is what we remember. Guns drawn around horses and everything else. But what the ok corral really meant is this was a time when survivors, the earp brothers and a doc holliday were brought to trial. For people dying at their hands using guns. While they were acquitted, the case got great coverage. It really sent a message to the frontier. Before, yo could use your excuse that if you pulled your gun and kill somebody, i thought he was going to kill me. I pulled first. This meant the restrictions of law had come to the frontier and will be there to stay. That what was is what was important about the subsequent trial. The gunfight itself at the ok corral was popular mythology that helped that Bat Masterson cell stories to a lot of newspapers, formed the basis for a lot of movies people still like watching to this day. But it was not really what happened. How is it wyatt earp became the known earp over virgil earp, who was actually the sheriff in tombstone . Wyatt earp in his Law Enforcement days was never the head honcho. He was always one of the deputies that had to do all the work that the sheriff did not want to. When wyatt was working for wichita, his job was scraping dead animals above the street in the sidewalks. But, wyatt was friends with the notorious doc holliday. Doc was notorious even in his own time. He looked right. This tall, striking, handsome man. He was greatly ambitious. He wanted to be rich. He wanted to be famous. He wanted to be well known. In his later years, when his image had become across had become famous across the country through newspaper articles he worked to get his memoir out to take advantage of that. So the marketing of wyatt earp is greatly responsible for the shows we remember today. The truth is so much more interesting. About a multidimensional man who, like all of us, had good points and bad points. But he was ambitious and determined to make something of himself. His only regret at the end of his life was he was about to get really famous but did not make any money out of it. Sitting in tucson we are what, 45 minutes, one hour from tombstone, arizona. The founding of tombstone. How did it become a town . Tombstone was one of those towns across the frontiers of america in that era where there were great Mineral Deposits over. In tombstones case, silver. The pesky apaches had been moved out. Or at least, partially moved out. When the miners settled in and began producing large quantities of valuable minerals. A silver in tombstone, mostly, that is when all of the businessmen came roaring in. You needed restaurants. You needed bars where they could drink. You needed ladies of the evening so they can have a little companionship. And, the towns would spring up and mostly die out within a few years when Mineral Deposits were all used up. Tombstone lasted a little longer than that. And it is still there. For a lot of people it is their chance to go to where the old west still really exists. This is exactly what it looks like. And, the simulated shootout at the ok corral is exactly how it happened. People love going to tombstone. What is it like today as a tourist attraction . I say this with respect for people in the town that have managed to survive and even thrive by making use of the things that happened there. For wild west history buffs, this is the equivalent of disneyland. You can go there. You can meet largerthanlife characters. You can have a couple throw brides so to speak. And, you can feel like you are back there just like it was. Except, nobody will shoot you in the back. There are no drunken minors staggering around. And there are no dead animals in the street. One thing that struck me about the last gunfight is every western town you have charted and researched kaplan laws. Kept gun laws. There were no handguns allowed in the city when city limits. This is a wonderful thing about writing and reading history. One thing i firmly believe his history is cyclical until we make a final effort. During the time of the herbs in tombstone, these were the great things of the day. Government. How much of it did we need. How much of our lives should government stay out of . Immigration. We cannot have these people crossing american borders and taking jobs away from real americans. And, gun control. This is my gun. If i want to wear it in town, whis to say i cannot . The very people today that idolize the old west. They think we can stroll around downtown with our six shooters strapped to both thighs. With my trusty winchester shotgun across my shoulder. They had gun laws. You are not allowe. They had gun laws. You are not allowed to bring your gun into town. You had to check it. They knew that a combination of liquor, macho tendencies, people that want to prove how tough they are. If you have guns, bad things will happen. So, they would not allow the guns. The nra would not last an hour in old tombstone when virgil earp was in charge. I think the nra does not mention that in any of their popular literature, yet it is a fact. These issues that were splitting america apart in the 1880s, we have still got them. The reason we do is we do not look back at history and see where all of this began and it gives us threads to decide, ok, we now have to stop and get some common sense gun laws. Laws regarding immigration. And, we have to have some national assessment, some agreement of how much government is necessary in our lives. Today we have people lashing out and screaming at each other. We really dont have these debates. 100 years from now our grandchildren may very well be saying, and you believe in gam plus in grandpas time at a the 20 20s they are talking about the same thing we are now, immigration, gun laws, Government Intervention . If we are going to stop we have to go back to genesis and say, ok, this is what we have to do. Otherwise, we will repeat this again. Peter in your next book manson the life and times of Charles Manson. What was your goal with that book . So much has been written about him and this did not come out until 2013. Jeff Charlie Manson in his lifetime was always the wrong man in the right place at the right time. If he had committed the crimes he was originally jailed for, eyes and he most incompetent temp i think he was the most incompetent pimp in the history of american prostitution and an incompetent car thief. If he had been jailed in nebraska and appeared in downtown omaha claiming to be a prophet and handing out drugs to adult kids looking for somebody to tell them what to do, the locals would have stuck him on a pitchfork and put him in a field as a scarecrow. But just in the time in American Life or california was where everybody on in america was looking for inspiration. I was in college at austin, texas. All i think why cant i be in San Francisco or los angeles where the culture is great, the music is wonderful, the philosophy is there . Manson gets out of prison. He ends up in berkeley, california. A hotbed of protests. Then, he goes across the bay to San Francisco. These were places where young kids flocked. They were looking for gurus like the beatles had. I found people that knew manson at this time. They would describe how manson would go to Golden Gate Park where every day there would be dozens of selfappointed gurus that would preach to the kids gathered around them. All of the kids hoping they would hear some great wisdom. Charlie would call two or three things that seemed to be very effective. Then he would go to the free clinic in haightashbury where sick kids were jammed in the lobby and preach to them there, getting his patter down. Then he would go back to golden gate. He would proclaim himself as a prophet. It worked enough with some ragtag kids that they decided charlie was some great profit. Maybe even some religious figure. He made sure they had all of the drugs they wanted. And, he pursued his dream of musical superstardom. Which did not happen. Have you ever heard any manson tapes he made at the time . I had a son who wanted to be a musician. At 12 he and some other six graders formed a garage band before our neighbors asked us to close it down or move. That wasnt Charlie Mansons level of music sophistication. It was never going to happen. But only in that place and not that time could he have gained his followers he did. And been able to talk them into committing a couple horrific crimes that just at that moment caught the attention of the country. There was a newspaper war in an a. The papers were vying for who could have the most lurid story about the tate love younger murders today Tate Labianca motors. Thus the Charlie Manson mythology springs up. At this Little Hippie man with magical powers. But he was a scrawny little thug. We remember him differently because of the times he lived in. That is why i wrote the book. Peter there is an image stuck in my head from 1960 91970 of Charlie Manson with susan adkins, leslie karen winkle, patricia van halton. The three women part of his gang. It is stuck there in time. Of course it has stuck there. It is very dramatic. I spent a lot of time with leslie and patricia researching the work. They are in corona california womens prison for life. They will never get out because no california governor wants to be the one to let any of the manson family out on the world. But, they remember the whole trial. Vince, of course, the prosecutor, right that fabulous true crime book helterskelter that has sold over 9 million copies in the years since. For charlie it is what he dreamed of. He is the center of international attention. Every day before the trial opened and the media came in, charlie, his lawyers, and the three women are who were women who were on trial with him convened for strategy sessions and charlie would say, i will do this outrageous thing today. What i do it, i want you three women to jump up and say this. He orchestrated every step of it. If he had gone into selling vacuum cleaners instead of crime, he might have been a multimillionaire. But, he had an image and he told them. He told these women that he was going to play crazy charlie. The knot case. At the nut case until it became so obvious that he was too crazy to be incarcerated for the crimes. But, they did not see the crazy charging just charlie. They saw the calculating charlie. Having them, houton and krewinkle two that gives to attest to that gives us fascinating inside. I did not know much about Charlie Manson before i started. When i started the book i sure did not like or admire him. But, you had to shake your head at some of the man had. He knew how to sell himself and he sold himself in blood. Peter what was it like sitting across the table from Leslie Van Houton and Patricia Krenwinkle knowing what they have done . Jeff in that prison if you are visiting them you are not allowed to bring in a pan or pen a pad or pen or a recording device. I spent a day interviewing one or the other because they arent friends anymore and it didnt want to sit at the same table are the same time. Peter and they are old ladies . Jeff we remember them frozen in time and in a way they still are. Leslie, the popular pretty girl on a high school is 21 all of this happens and she still has the little girl gestures. When she is talking to you, she plays with her hair. She giggles. She reaches out to pet your hand like the pretty flirtatious girl in high school would do. They would talk and i would have to raise back to my hotel and try to write it down. Patricia krenwinkle at one point, an old woman now that spencer days in prison training rescue dogs to be guide dogs for the blind. She will not remind you, as you see her, of anybody dangerous. She is telling me about stabbing Abigail Folger on the lawn of the house on the night of